


Rejection tastes like cake

by Celestiallie



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Jane POV, M/M, Other, all ships are implied, bluh, can't tag, just a drabble really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 20:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celestiallie/pseuds/Celestiallie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It occurred to her very suddenly one day, with her fingers sticky with globules of sugar and frosting, the same that was rimming her mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rejection tastes like cake

It occurred to her very suddenly one day, with her fingers sticky with globules of sugar and frosting, the same that was rimming her mouth.

“He doesn’t like me.”

She said it out loud, a bleak, morbid curiosity compelling her see what it sounded like rolling off her lips. Her voice was wavering, uncertain, as though the words hadn’t solidified as fact when she had said them.

“He doesn’t like me.”

She repeated, sounding a bit more confident this time, the words no longer faltering. It had almost been a moment of joy; mustering the courage and confidence to say it out loud, until the meaning of the words hit her abruptly, just as her confidence was reaching its peak.

“He doesn’t like me.”

She said it a third time, because, as they say; “Third time’s the charm.” Except she was neither charmed nor pleased, as the meaning took its time to sink it. Her boyfriend didn’t like her. Her boyfriend didn’t like her. Her boyfriend, the wonderful Jake English, didn’t like her. At first, she’d believed it was just a silly conviction borne of paranoia; of course her boyfriend liked her! There was a reason that he was her boyfriend, after all. There was a reason why he accepted her confession, she’d reassured herself.

But what if he just didn’t want to upset her?

That would make sense, actually. She was his childhood best friend, long before either of them had entered the romantic scene. He’d had many girlfriends before her, and they were all the same type – tall, all edges and angles and straight lines. She was the exact opposite: short and all curves – in both good and bad places. It certainly didn’t come as much of a surprise as she had originally fathomed; looking back, she would have expected her reaction to be greater, in shock because of this sudden epiphany, perhaps.

Instead, she reached over and took another slice of cake, relishing in how sticky the frosting made her fingers and how sweet the sugar tasted in her mouth.

Jake English wasn’t reliable, she knew that. She knew exactly what she was getting into when she’d confessed to her long-time friend. She’d been with him during every instance of love at first sight, every single break-up. It was increasingly evident that she would be the latest ex-girlfriend among many sometime soon. It wasn’t the boy’s fault, she supposed, but his impulsive nature drove him to things like love at first sight – an empty love without any time to properly bake.

Bake. She needed more cake. Betty Crocker could always be relied upon, even if Jake English was inconstant as a shooting star – fine to wish upon but empty to believe.

She herself had let her feelings properly bake, gradually growing and getting warmer, until it had risen as a perfect cake. Half, mind you, and made to perfectly fit another half. He, on the other hand, was drawn by the inconstant wind, putting in too much or too little of the ingredients, without even any proper baking time, so his half of the cake was imperfect. It was never meant to work out. There was too much friendship and too little love.

She dipped her finger into her cake mix and gave it a lick. Delicious.

She watched her cake begin to rise in the oven. It was a full cake, not a crumbled half-chewed half piece. Jake was never good at baking – cooking in general, even. He never provided his half of the cake. Nobody, however, told her that she couldn’t make her own other half, and fill herself up with it. It helped reduce the gaping hole that was made by their cake rotting and crumbling. And, somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to care that she was making herself even rounder, even chubbier, and even less close to Jake’s expectations.

‘Jake’s expectations’.

He liked tall, slim girls with short, spikey blonde hair. They had to have a basic understanding of robots and their favourite animals had to be horses (she knew all of this because she’d befriended all of them in an effort to impress Jake, which was both an idiotic pursuit and futile at best). They were all lines and angles in contrast to how curvy she was; she’d felt out of place when lined up next to them. He’d always buy them sunglasses for their 2-week anniversary (always 2-weeks, always that soon), and they were all quite similar – angular, just like their bodies – and urged them to wear them in public. Maybe he just liked the way they looked on them.

Then, it made too much sense.

Of course he would go after girls like that. It had been that way ever since Dirk Strider was getting more chummy with Roxy Lalonde. Maybe Jake was jealous, maybe he was subconsciously dating these girls in order to forget about him, and then perhaps the only reason his subconscious gave him to accept her confession was because of the fact that it was a subtle jab at revenge in their group of four. Why would he have accepted her confession otherwise? A gentle rejection was more of his style; of course, he had rejected other girls before her, why would he accept her, out of all people? It didn’t matter now, of course.

The cake was ready.

Her friends were already concerned with her eating habits, but why should she care? Their insults towards Betty Crocker, perhaps intended to help her overcome her incessant love of cake (that was always prevalent but got worse over time). But who says Betty Crocker is a batterwitch? It was perfectly round, fresh and warm, straight from the oven. She gave it a tentative poke with her fork – it was light, but not without substance either. Just like Jake. Air-headed, up in the clouds, but definitely not lacking in substance. Chocolate, his favourite. He’d always say something after she gave him a dessert – something like “Golly! How did you know that chocolate was my favourite?” or “My, Janey dear, you’ve really outdone yourself!” Something cute and positively Jake-like and that she was in love with. She’d peppered the cake with green frosting, made into the shape of a skull. Just like Jake, just like Jake. This cake was just enough Jake for her, enough to fill that empty Jake-shaped hole that was in her heart and her stomach.

She ate it, without any thoughts of getting even chubbier or getting more self-conscious over her appearance.

It filled the hole inside her nicely enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short, silly drabble I wrote. Inspired by the short story 'Cookie' from Joanna Harris's collection of short stories "A cat, a hat and a piece of string". It's in Jane's POV, in case you couldn't tell. Sort of experimenting with this writing style?
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading it!


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